THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT  OF 

Walter  Rothinan 


The  Jewish  Quarterly  Review 


NEW  SERIES 
EDITED  BY  CYRUS  ADLER 


Vol.  XI  JULY  1920  No.  1 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


THE  TARGUM  TO   CANTICLES  ACCORDING  TO  SIX  YEMEN 
MSS.    COMPARED    WITH    THE    'TEXTUS     RECEPTUS' 
(Ed,  de  Lagarde).     Chapters  II-Y 
Dr.  Raphael  Hai  Melamed i 

THE  RABBINATE   OF  THE  GREAT   SYNAGOGUE,    LONDON, 
FROM  1756-1842. 
Dr.  C.  Duschinsky       21 

CRITICAL  NOTICES : 

AN  EXPLANATION  OF  ABOT  \1.  3. 

Dr.  Jacob  Kohn     83 

THE  AUTHOR  OF  THE  YIGDAL  HYMN. 

Dr.  Hartwig  Hirschfeld 86 

HUSBAND'S  '  PROSECUTION  OF  JESUS '. 

Dr.  M.  Hyamson     89 

^.HEBREW  INCUNABULA. 

Prof.  Alexander  Marx      '...^ 98 

WOLF'S  NOTES  ON  THE  '  DIPLOMATIC   HISTORY  OF  THE 
JEWISH  QUESTION'. 

Max  J.  Kohler,  Esq. ...        120 

SAEKI'S  •  NESTORIAN  MONUMENT  IN  CHINA  *. 

Prof.  F.  Wells  Williams 12.:; 


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Instructor  in  Biblical  Philology :  Joseph  Reider,  B.  A,  (College  of 
the  City  of  New  York),  Ph.D.  (Dropsie  College). 

Instructor  in  Talmud  and  Arabic:  B.  Halper,  M.A.  (London), 
Ph.D.  (Dropsie  College). 


THE  College  offers  instruction  in  Biblical  and  Rabbinical 
Literatures,  in  the  Semitic  Languages,  and  in  Jewish 
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husband's   '  PROSECUTION  OF  JESUS  ' — HYAMSON       97 

(7)  Crucifixion  is  not  a  Jewish  punishment. 

(8)  Nor  is  theft  a  capital  offence  in  Jewish  law — except 
kidnapping.  Hence  the  crucifixion  of  the  two  thieves  was  repug- 
nant to  the  Jewish  sense  of  justice. 

On  all  the  above  grounds,  many  of  which  Professor  Husband 
states,  the  legitimate  conclusion  is  that  Jesus  was  not  tried  by  the 
Sanhedrin,  but  that  he  was  surrendered  by  the  priests  to  the 
Romans.  They  were  exasperated  by  Jesus'  disapproval  of  them. 
At  the  same  time,  they  were  moved  by  fear  of  an  abortive  insur- 
rection and  its  dire  consequences  to  themselves  and  the  people. 
'The  Romans  will  come  and  take  away  both  our  place  and 
nation  '. 

The  statement  under  item  4  in  the  conclusion :  '  If  the 
condemnation  of  the  Court  was  unanimous,  the  result  would 
have  been  an  acquittal,  is  based  on  the  dictum  in  the  Talmud 
{Sanhedrin  17a):  fnix  pit^is  nnin^  1^3  isx"  mnjD  WHD  m  nr^N. 
Rav  Cahana  says :  '  If  the  entire  Sanhedrin  is  in  favour  of  con- 
demning the  accused  (in  a  capital  charge)  he  is  acquitted.'  See 
also  Maimonides'  Code  Hikhoth  Sanhedrin,  ch.  9,  part  i  :  imnjD 
vn''K'  ny  iiod  nr  nn  y^n  i^d  ncsn  n^nn  niK'SJ  ^^nn  dS^  innsK' 
n.T  pnnNi  pn^'inDn  ut-i  ini^n  issn-'^j^  pdtd  nvpro  n^.  The 
reason  given  in  the  Talmud  is  that  the  object  of  not  pronouncing 
a  sentence  of  condemnation  on  the  same  day  as  the  trial,  is  to 
allow  opportunity  for  finding  arguments  leading  to  acquittal. 
Where  the  Court,  however,  had  made  up  its  mind  unanimously 
for  condemnation,  this  object  would  fail.  That  is,  there  is 
obviously  either  bias  and  prejudice,  or  at  the  least  lack  of  the 
openness  of  mind  and  judicial  spirit  of  calm  deliberation  requisite 
in  a  Court.  The  rule  above  stated  is  expressed  in  popular  phrase 
as  ^NDr  n-'^n  i^d. 

M.  Hyamson. 

Jewish  Theological  Seminary  of  America. 


VOL.  XI.  H 


R89<^>1<^ 


HEBREW   INCUNABULA 

Cassuto,    Umberto.      IncunaboU  Ebraici  a   Firenze.     Firenze, 
Leo  S.  Olschki,  1912,  pp.  36,  20. 

Hebrdische  Inkiinabehi  14^^-14^0.    Mit  33  Faksimiles.     Katalog 
151  von  Ludwig  Rosenthal's  Antiquariat.     Miinchen. 

Since  De  Rossi's  famous  Annales  Hebraeo-Typographici  sec. 
XV,  Parma,  1795,  the  short  and  exhaustive  paper  of  A.  Freimann, 
'Ueber  hebraische  Inkunabehi ',  Leipzig,  1902  (reprint  from 
Centralblati  filr  Bibliothekszvesen,  XIX,  108-16),  was  the  first 
monograph  devoted  to  our  subject.  While  De  Rossi  first  dealt 
with  the  dated  incunabula  in  chronological  order  and  had  them 
followed  by  the  undated  ones,  Freimann  arranges  them  according 
to  cities  and  presses.^  The  two  publications  under  review  show 
the  same  difference  of  arrangement,  only  that  Cassuto  places  the 
undated  books  in  their  approximate  places,  as  does  Jacobs  in 
Jewish  Encyclopedia,  VI,  pp.  578-9.  Together  with  the  descrip- 
tions of  incunabula  in  Wachstein's  catalogue  reviewed  previously 
{JQR.,  N.  S.,  vol.  VI,  pp.  107  seq.)  they  form  a  most  welcome 

*  Freimann  enumerates  101  books,  omitting  two  recorded  by  De  Rossi  : 
Mardokai  Finzi,  ninV;  Mantua;  De  Rossi,  113;  Steinschneider,  1658-9 
<&  copy  of  this  unusually  rare  booklet  was  acquired  by  Mr.  Sassoon  some 
time  ago,  I  learned  from  Mr.  E.  N.  Adler)  and  one  of  the  two  Ixar  Penta- 
teuchs,  De  Rossi,  73;  Steinsch.,  No.  8;  Proctor,  9602;  or  De  Rossi,  143; 
Steinsch.,  No.  loii;  Proctor,  9601  (he  gives  the  Steinsch.  number  for 
the  first,  the  Proctor  number  for  the  second)  and  two  recorded  in  Stein- 
schneider's  Supplementum  Cat.  Bodl.  :  Abot  with  Maimonides  in  23  leaves, 
being  a  separate  issue  from  the  Roman  Mahzor  with  omission  of  the 
signature  of  the  latter  (see  now  Z/HB.,  XIV,  p.  49,  and  187,  No.  11)  and 
the  two  leaves  of  Alfasi. 

Since  that  time  a  few  more  incunabula  have  come  to  light  and  are 
described  in   ZfHB.,  mostly  by  Freimann. 

98 


HEBREW    INCUNABULA — MARX  99 

addition  to  the  literature  on  our  subject  and  will  have  to 
be  consulted  by  every  bibliographer  in  this  field.  Rosenthal's 
catalogue  offers  sixty-eight  numbers  containing  forty-eight  different 
books  or  parts  of  books,  a  collection  which  could  not  be  easily 
duplicated  again^  as  Hebrew  incunabula  are  constantly  growing 
scarcer.  The  prices  go  far  beyond  those  ever  charged  before  for  this 
class  of  books  and  seem  to  me  in  many  cases  to  be  exorbitant.^ 
The  description  of  the  books  is  very  well  done  and  shows  the 
hand  of  a  trained  bibliographer,  who  is  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  history  of  Hebrew  typography.  He  gives  careful  collations 
and  typographical  descriptions.  For  the  Rome  prints,  which  we 
generally  describe  as  printed  before  1480,  he  tries  to  prove  a 
somewhat  earlier  age  under  No.  48  and  places  them  tentatively 
in  the  year  1475  (see  infra).  Among  the  Spanish  incunabula  he 
has  leaves  of  various  unknown  editions,  about  which  I  hope  to 
speak  more  in  another  connexion.  Thirty-three  facsimiles,  five 
of  them  giving  full  pages,  are  a  particularly  welcome  addition  as 
they  are  selected  with  discretion.  It  is  a  pity  that  for  the  Conat 
type  the  author  did  not  think  of  reproducing  fol.  350  of  Gersonides 
on  the  Pentateuch,  in  which  a  letter  was  pulled  out  of  its  place  in 
the  course  of  the  printing  and  laid  upon  the  forms.  We  get  the 
measures  of  the  type  employed  by  Conat,  p.  4,  no.  4  (27  mm.  long, 
6  mm.  broad).'* 

Facsimile  30  does  not  belong  to  No.  63  but  to  66.  The 
latter,  a  Pentateuch  with  Targum  (of  which  the  Jewish  Theological 
Seminary  has  two  leaves,  presented  to  its  Library  some  years  ago 
by  Dr  Schechter),  seems  to  me  to  come  from  a  very  early  Spanish 
press.  Rosenthal  compares  it  with  Haebler  332,  of  which  unfor- 
tunately no  facsimile  is  found  in  Haebler's  Typografia.  This 
edition  of  the  Tur  is  ascribed  to  Lisbon  only  on  the  authority 
of  Van   Straalen,  which   is  of  little  weight  in    such    questions. 

-  Since  writing  the  above  (July,  1918)  the  prices  of  rare  books  in 
general  have  advanced  so  much  that  one  can  only  say  that  Rosenthal 
anticipated  the  movement  by  a  few  years. 

•''  See  for  similar  instances  in  Latin  incunabula,  Talbot  Baines  Reed, 
History  of  the  old  English  Letter  Foundries,  London,    1887,  p.  24. 

H  2 


lOO  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

Freimann,  p.  9,  note  2,  considers  his  statement  very  doubtful. 
In  my  opinion  the  book,  of  which  the  Seminary  Library  has  two 
leaves,  was  printed  in  Spain.  Incidentally  I  may  remark  that 
Rosenthal  calls  No.  57,  Ramban  1489,  the  first  book  printed  in 
Lisbon,  but  ascribes  our  fragment  to  the  same  press,  that  of 
Toledano,  and  to  the  year  1480  ! 

,  Cassuto  describes  only  forty-three  volumes  containing  thirty- 
one  different  incunabula  which  are  found  in  the  libraries  of 
Florence,  and  they  are  with  very  few  exceptions  printed  in 
Italy.  But  in  spite  of  the  smaller  number  of  books  described, 
his  is  a  very  important  contribution  to  bibliography,  for  the  author, 
while  consulting  all  his  predecessors,  does  not  accept  any  of  their 
statements  without  careful  examination  and  not  infrequently  takes 
occasion  to  correct  them.  Cassuto  dwells  less  on  the  typographical 
description  ;  his  collation  is  less  detailed,  but  he  reproduces  the 
characteristic  parts  of  the  epigraphs,  notes  of  former  owners,  &:c. 
The  book  is  a  reprint  from  Olschki's  Bibliofilia^  XII-XIII,  and 
this  explains  the  fact  that  the  few  facsimiles  given  are  taken  from 
the  most  common  incunabula  described,  those  that  happened  to 
be  in  the  possession  of  Olschki.  It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that 
no  exception  was  made  for  the  unique  Pentateuch  described 
under  No.  43  and  such  rare  works  as  Petah  Debarai  of  1492  and 
the  Brescia  Psalms  of  1493,  Nos.  40  and  42.  Like  Rosenthal 
and  Wachstein,  Cassuto  does  not  seem  to  know  the  careful 
description  of  thirteen  Soncino  incunabula  in  vol.  II,  part  i  of 
Manzoni,  Annali  tipografici  dei  Soncino,  Bologna,  1886. 

Special  attention  is  paid  to  the  dates,  and  in  some  instances 
common  errors  are  corrected.  Under  No.  19,  Cassuto  convin- 
cingly shows  that  the  date  of  the  first  edition  of  the  Hagiographa 
is  wrongly  printed,  and  that  in  Tishri  5248  the  printer,  by  a  slip 
of  memory,  repeated  the  date  of  the  previous  year,  thus  giving 
the  impression  that  the  third  volume  appeared  before  the  first, 
while  in  the  colophon  to  the  latter  he  expressly  refers  to 
the  other  volumes  as  still  to  be  printed.  The  error  of  Stein- 
schneider  in  giving  the  date  of  the  conclusion  of  printing  the 
Pentateuch  of  the  first  complete  Bible  by  Soncino,  as  February  23 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  lOI 

instead  of  April  22,  had  already  been  pointed  out  by  Manzoni, 
I.e.  152;  not  only  Freimann  and  Jacobs,  but  also  Darlow  and 
Moule,  No.  5075,  repeated  the  mistake.  Of  wrong  calculations 
of  dates  quite  a  number  are  found  in  all  the  works  on  our 
subject,  and  even  Cassuto  repeated  one  at  least  in  No.  36  = 
Rosenthal  37.  Kimhi's  Sefer  Shorashini  is  said  to  have  been 
finished  in  Naples,  Thursday,  Rosh  Hodesh  Adar,  1491.  The  first 
of  Adar  of  that  year  fell  on  the  i  ith  of  February,  the  date  generally 
given  for  our  book;  but  the  nth  was  a  Friday,  and  therefore 
the  first  day  of  Rosh  Hodesh,  February  loth,  must  be  meant. 
Rosenthal,  No.  18,  places  the  date  of  the  colophon  of  the 
Talmudic  treatise  Niddah  on  July  22,  1489;  but  the  25th  of 
Ab  fell  on  the  23rd.  The  treatise  HuUin  was  finished  a  month 
earlier,  on  the  15th  of  Tammuz,  identified  by  Steinschneider  with 
the  13th  instead  of  the  14th  of  June  (January  in  Freimann  is 
a  misprint).  I  may  be  permitted  to  add  two  more  corrections 
of  dates  in  this  connexion.  The  earliest  dated  incunable,  the 
Rashi  of  Reggio,  was  finished  on  the  loth  of  Adar,  1475,  which 
is  the  18th,  not  the  5th,  of  February.  Ibn  Ezra  on  the  Pentateuch 
was  finished  on  the  36th  day  of  Omer,*  i.e.  as  De  Rossi,  p.  58, 
rightly  remarks,  the  21st  of  lyyar.  Steinschneider  emphatically 
maintains  {^Cat.  Bodi.,  p.  680,  comp.  introduction,  p.  xix,  note  i6) 
that  it  is  the  22nd,  and  all  the  bibliographers  down  to  the 
Probedruck  of  the  German  Gesamtkatalog  der  Wiegendrucke 
follow  him  in  giving  the  3rd  of  May  instead  of  the  2nd. 

Some  of  the  dates  of  the  incunabula  are  unfortunately  in- 
complete and  cannot  be  identified  with  certainty  ;  the  statement 

^  Mahler,  Handbiich  der  jitdischen  Chronologie,  Leipzig,  1916,  p.  xv, 
maintains  that  dates  were  never  given  according  to  the  'Sephira'!  The 
present  case  shows  how  necessary  a  Sefira  table  is  for  practical  purposes. 
See  also  the  date  of  the  Mantua  Josippon.  The  Sefira  is  frequently  used 
in  dating  letters  and  responsa.  The  following  three  cases  from  colophons 
of  manuscripts  of  the  Seminary  Library  illustrate  its  application  in  different 
countries.  Mishna  Zeraim  with  Maimonides'  commentary  was  finished  in 
Yemen  on  the  N"l0yD  y'D ,  1628  Sel  =  April  21,  1316,  Nahmanides  on 
Gittin  the  36th  day  of  Omer.  5157  -=  March  18,  1397,  in  Alinunia,  Spain, 
a  Siddur  on  the  37th  day,  5203  -    April  22,  1443,  in  Arezzo.  Italy. 


I02  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

in  the  Yosippon  that  it  was  finished  on  the  49th  day  of  Omer 
without  a  mention  of  the  year  is  perhaps  the  most  striking  instance. 
The  day  of  the  month  is  more  frequently  omitted.  I  lately  came 
across  a  case  in  which  an  exact  determination  seems  possible  to 
me.  The  Lisbon  Nahmanides  (Rosenthal,  No.  57),  according 
to  De  Rossi,  was  printed  in  Ab,  1489.  Steinschneider  remarked 
that  the  day  of  the  week  was  also  mentioned  in  the  colophon 
(reprinted  iVIGlV/.,  II,  pp.  281-2),  being  expressed  by  2313  DV, 
Wednesday.  In  this  case  we  must  expect  that  the  day  of  the 
month  was  also  given,  and  I  find  it  in  this  very  passage,  2313  D1''2 
Nin  2N^  b^-\^'h  u'nn.-i  ....  mc'n  xin  12  nx.  Here  ns*  con- 
tains the  date.  The  printer  cannot,  however,  mean  the  i8th 
of  Ab  =  1 6th  of  July,  which  fell  on  Thursday;  we  certainly 
must  not  count  the  S' ;  perhaps  he  wanted  to  place  dots  over 
the  other  two  letters,  but  forgot.  A  mistake  on  his  part  is  also 
not  quite  impossible.  However  that  may  be,  it  is  possible  to 
date  the  book  July  15,  1489. 

I  shall  now  add  some  remarks,  following  the  order  of  Cassuto, 
referring  at  the  same  time  to  the  parallel  entries  in  Rosenthal. 

The  first  book  in  Cassuto  is  the  Mantua  Josippon,  which  he 
describes  as  a  folio,  while  Rosenthal  calls  it  a  quarto.  Chwolson, 
i5N-lkJ'''2  Disin  HD'yo  n^Ci'N"!,  p.  n,  states  that  the  two  copies 
of  the  book  he  has  seen  are  almost  folio  size.  In  this  connexion 
it  is  interesting  to  remember  that  Azariah  de  Rossi  speaks  of  two 
Conat  editions,  an  assertion  which  Luzzatto  in  the  name  of  Almanzi 
explains  by  the  fact  that  Conat  printed  two  editions,  one  on 
larger  and  one  on  smaller  paper  {Ozar  Nechinad,  II,  pp.  12- 
13).  De  Rossi's  assertion  (^w;^^^/^^',  p.  115)  that  Tarn  ibn  Yahya 
in  the  Constantinople  edition  also  refers  to  previous  editions, 
Steinschneider  rightly  considers  doubtful.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Tam  only  speaks  of  his  text  in  opposition  to  the  Latin  versions  of 
Josephus.  The  Constantinople  edition,  to  which  De  Rossi  refers, 
contains  nothing  more  than  the  Venice  edition,  which  slavishly 
follows  its  predecessor,  only  placing  the  epilogue  of  the  editor 
and  the  table  of  contents  in  the  front  of  the  book  instead  of  at 
the  end.     It  even  imitates  the  colophon  as  closely  as  possible. 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  IO3 

As  the  book  is  extremely  rare — it  is  only  found  in  Parma, 
the  Vatican,  and  the  Library  of  Columbia  University,  N.  Y. — 
I  give  here  this  colophon  from  the  latter  copy  (purchased  from 
Catalogue  Lehren,  Amsterdam,  1899,  No.  955),  overlining  the 
words  which  differ  in  the  Venice  edition  :  na^  D'D'ii'  nasvD  Q^^^ni 

n-np  ^niyn  DJim  DJiom  D33>^  D3^  s"l:'j  -id's*  d^"j*:n  ipvnn  dt- 
nvT'  proipn  i'xinty  n"ni  N^n^  'j  3py^  -i"n  non  Nbn  nxin  mi*?:n 
r\y^  la  n"-\2  tnc^^rn  nriMi  :  ch)V  ly  Qn^  mroyn  nnpnvi  oi^ys  i?N* 
ijjnN  nk"OD  nnn  xm  Tti's*  "nan  NJ^DionpnTTnoin  -\"d:  uni 
mm"  ycnn  iro^ni   ^^jy2)  Tma^D  sc^jni  n"T  onN^n  pSc'  i^r:n 

The  Constantinople  edition  begins  with  the  words  DT  ban  Ql*'3 
iVTtJ  p  13D  ^nx  pvyi,  which  are  written  in  a  large  old  German 
hand  in  the  beginning  of  the  copy  of  the  Mantua  edition  in 
Columbia,  just  as  they  are  found  in  the  facsimile  of  Baron 
Giinzburg's  copy  in  the  front  of  his  reprint  of  it  (ed.  Kahana, 
Berdichev,  19 13)  and  the  three  copies  of  De  Rossi.  A.  Cohen, 
Hebrew  incunabula  in  Cambridge,  p.  2  {JQR.,  XIX,  p.  745),  takes 
these  words  as  part  of  the  text,  as  had  been  done  by  Roest  when 
describing  the  Columbia  copy  (Catalogue  "i2D  nnp,  Amsterdam, 
1867,  p,  193).  This  copy  is  a  small  quarto.  It  once  belonged  to 
Andreas  Osiander,  who  acquired  it  '  duobus  nummis  aureis  '  on 
July  7,  1526,  from  Joh.  Bossenstain  (=  Boeschenstain),  and  pre- 
sented it  later  to  Matthias  Hafenreffer  in  Tubingen.  It  after- 
wards came  into  the  possession  of  Solomon  Dubno.  The  second 
copy,  described  by  Roest  as  on  larger  paper,  is  now  in  the  Library 
of  the  Hebrew  Union  College. 

The  John  Rylands  Library  at  Manchester  possesses  a  copy  of 
Josippon  on  vellum  (Catalogue,  1899,  p.  953).  As  none  of  Conat's 
books  is  represented  in  Freimann's  list  of  Pergameiitdrucke 
{Z/HB.,  XIV)  this  is  the  only  known  product  of  his  press 
printed  on  vellum. 


I04  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

The  contradiction  in  the  date  of  the  second  number  of 
Cassuto,  Gersonides  on  Job,  was  already  noticed  by  Stein- 
schneider. 

While  giving  extracts  from  the  colophon  to  the  Psalter  of 
1477,  Cassuto  ought  not  to  have  omitted  the  most  interesting 
statement  that  the  size  of  the  edition  was  300  copies,  the  same 
as  that  of  some  of  the  books  printed  by  Sweynheim  and  Pannartz, 
the  first  Italian  printers,  at  Subiaco  and  Rome,  1465-1472.  In 
a  letter  to  the  Pope  they  enumerate  twenty-eight  books,  nine  of 
them  printed  in  two  editions,  four  of  which  they  had  produced 
in  300  copies,  the  others  in  275  (see  Serapeuvi,  XIII,  pp.  241-8; 
Brit.  Mus.  Cat.  of  Incunabula,  IV,  p.  15).  300  was  also  the 
size  of  John  of  Speyer's  second  edition  of  Cicero's  Epistolae  ad 
Familiares,  Venice,  1469,  and  Philipp  Lavagna's  edition  of  the 
same  book  in  Milan,  1472  (see  Alfred  W.  Pollard,  An  Essay 
on  Colophons^  Chicago,  1905,  pp.  32-3  and  151).  Wendelin  of 
Speyer  published  in  Venice,  1470  and  1471,  two  editions  of 
Sallust  of  400  copies  each  (Pollard,  pp.  37,  39).  This  was  also 
the  size  of  Solomon  Alkabej's  edition  of  Kimhi's  commentary 
on  the  Later  Prophets,  Guadalajara,  1482  (evidently  this  is  the 
meaning  of  the  colophon,  Cat.  Bodl.,  p.  869).  Some  of  the  earlier 
editions  were  much  smaller ;  thus  John  of  Speyer  brought  out  a  first 
edition  of  Cicero's  letters  as  well  as  Pliny's  natural  history  in  only 
100  copies  each  (Pollard,  pp.  31,  35,  36).  It  is  therefore  quite 
likely  that  Baron  Giinzburg's  hypothesis  that  Conat's  edition  of  the 
Tur  Orah  Hayyim  consisted  of  125  copies  is  well  founded 
{Festschrift  Chwolsofi,  Berlin,  1899,  p.  60).  He  is  certainly  right 
as  against  Chwolson,  /.  <:.,  p.  7,  in  interpreting  Conat's  colophon 
to  mean  that  125  double  leaves  constituted  the  daily  output 
of  his  press.  To  come  back  to  our  Psalter,  the  Breslau  copy  of 
this  edition,  according  to  Zuckermann's  catalogue  (p.  47),  has 
not  the  name  Neriyyah  (one  of  the  printers)  in  the  colophon  ; 
the  same  is  the  case  in  our  copy  (formerly  Ghirondi-Schoenblum  ; 
Cat.  M.  Spirgatis  76,  Leipzig,  1900,  No.  39),  in  which  the  last  leaf 
is  facsimiled,  evidently  from  the  Breslau  copy.  The  typographical 
arrangement  (reproduced  by  Wachstein,  p.  36)  shows  that  the 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA MARX  IO5 

name  must  have  been  originally  there,  and  probably  was  rubbed 
out  in  one  copy. 

The  Moreh  (No.  5)  was,  according  to  Chwolson  {Lc.  p.  32), 
the  first  of  the  books  which  were  printed  in  Rome  and  appeared  in 
1476  or  1477.  Rosenthal  (No.  49)  places  it  c.  1475,  suggesting 
an  even  earlier  date  as  he  finds  the  Rome  prints  more  primitive 
and  representing  a  lower  stage  of  the  development  of  printing  than 
Conat's  work.  His  reasoning,  however  (see  p.  21),  presupposes  a 
general  logical  development  of  the  printing  craft  for  which  there  is 
no  proof.  The  printers  generally  imitated  their  predecessors,  the 
scribes,  and  it  is  possible  that  the  Rome  printers  took  another 
class  of  manuscripts  as  their  models,  than  those  of  other  cities. 
Perhaps  an  influence  of  Christian  printers  might  be  traced,  as 
it  is  in  itself  not  unlikely  that  some  of  the  early  Jewish  printers 
may  have  served  their  apprenticeship  with  printers  of  Latin 
books.  Were  there  Jewish  artisans  among  the  latter?  I  lack 
the  familiarity  with  non-Hebrew  incunabula  which  an  answer 
to  these  questions  presupposes.  But  a  glance  through  the  pages 
of  the  Rome  volume  of  the  British  Museum  Catalogue  of 
Fifteenth-century  Books  will  convince  any  one  that  there  also 
printing  in  one  column  was  far  more  common  than  in  double 
columns.  Rosenthal's  second  argument  that  the  large  square 
type  used  indicates  greater  age,  and  that  only  later  were  smaller 
and  Rabbinic  types  employed,  has  no  foundation  whatever.  The 
Tur  of  1475  is  printed  in  very  small  square  characters,  the 
Reggio-Rashi  of  the  same  year  with  Rabbinic  type  of  a  Spanish 
character,  while  e.  g.  the  Zamora-Rashi  of  1487  shows  square  type 
of  a  regular  size.  Lack  of  colophons  is  so  common  with 
undoubtedly  later  books  that  it  is  very  risky  to  take  it  as  an 
indication  of  an  earlier  date.  Since  colophons  were  common  in 
Latin  books  printed  in  Italy  long  before  the  Hebrew  ones,  no 
special  ingenuity  was  required  to  imitate  this  custom  in  Hebrew 
books.  The  argument  from  the  selection  of  texts,  that  Nah- 
manides  most  likely  preceded  Gersonides,  does  not  require 
refutation.  On  the  other  hand  we  have  a  positive  date  for  one 
of  the  Rome  prints  which,  I  think,  prevents  our  going  back  too 


Io6  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

far.  Seeligmann  drew  attention  to  the  epigraph  in  Kimhi's 
Shorashim  which  is  only  found  in  the  Amsterdam  copy  {ZfHB., 
VII,  p.  25),  and  Freimann  {ibid.,  note,  cp.  VIII,  p.  127)  showed 
that  it  contains  a  reference  to  the  decision  of  a  quarrel  which  was 
given  in  1478.  Here  we  have  then  one  of  these  books  which 
was  printed  after  1478.  According  to  Seeligmann  {I.e.  and 
Z/HB.,  XVII,  14)  these  incunabula  were  not  printed  in  Rome. 

This  reference  to  Seeligmann  also  escaped  Cassuto,  who 
(No.  7)  describes  a  splendid  parchment  copy  of  this  book  which, 
while  containing  all  the  blank  leaves  at  the  beginning  and  end, 
evidently  lacks  this  epigraph  which,  in  the  Amsterdam  copy, 
immediately  follows  the  final  words  reproduced  by  Cassuto, 
This  is  perhaps  a  parallel  to  the  Naples  1491  edition  of  the 
same  book  of  which  the  British  Museum  copy  has  at  the  end 
the  name  of  a  printer,  Catorze,  not  found  in  the  dozen  or  so 
other  known  copies  of  this  edition  (see  infra). 

The  Bologna  Pentateuch  of  1482  on  parchment  (No.  8)  has 
a  note  of  sale,  unfortunately  not  a  very  early  one — it  is  dated 
1633 — the  price  being  thirty  florins.  The  only  other  price  found 
in  the  Florence  incunabula  is  a  statement  that  Maimonides'  code 
(No.  28)  was  given  as  security  for  8  giulii  (f  of  a  scudo;  Zunz, 
Zur  Geschichte,  p.  460)  and  should  become  the  property  of  the 
lender  if  the  money  was  not  paid  back  in  April — but  no  year 
is  given.  As  we  get  only  very  few  instances  of  the  prices  paid 
for  incunabula  such  notes  are  of  value.  Freimann  {Ueber  hebr. 
Inkunabe/n,  p.  4)  could  only  enumerate  four  instances,  to  which 
he  later  added  a  fifth  {ZfHB.,  XII,  p.  38),  a  Kol-Bo  purchased 
for  15  Bolognesi  in  1575.  The  Seminary  copy  of  the  same  book 
was  acquired  for  20  Bolognesi  by  Moses  Finzi  da  Arezzo  who 
lived  about  the  same  time.  According  to  an  undated  statement 
in  the  Seminary  copy  of  Nahmanides,  Shaar  ha-Gemul  Juda 
(Leon)  Gonzago  acquired  it  for  2  giulii.  Our  copy  of  the  Ixar 
Yoreh  Deah  was  given  as  security  for  20  marks  in  15 18  (pt^W 
u"j?"i  p^mo  ^'r  |n:3  xa'^-ins*  "i"n  nn  na  i^j^^na  p).  A  more 
interesting  reference  from  the  year  1500  is  found  in  Pelli- 
canus'  autobiography  (see  Das  Chronikon  des  Konrad  Pellikan, 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  I07 

herausgegeben  durch  Bernhard  Riggenbach,  Basel,  1877,  p.  20; 
Die  Hauschro7iik  Ko7irad  Pellika/i's,  deutsch  von  Th.  Vu/pius, 
Strassburg,  1892,  p.  22).  A  Tubingen  bookseller  sold  him  the 
Brescia  Bible  for  i^  gulden,  while  he  had  thought  he  would 
have  to  pay  6  to  8  for  so  rare  a  book.  (See  also  the  price  of 
Josippon  quoted  above.)  Rosenthal  also  has  a  parchment  copy 
of  the  Bologna  Pentateuch  (No.  6),  which  he  combines  with  the 
Soncino  Prophets  as  the  first  Bible  edition,  for  which  he  asks 
10,000  M. !  forgetting  the  Hagiographa  altogether,  of  which  he 
has  some  parts  (Nos.  26  and  28).  The  Seminary  Library  has 
one  of  the  few  paper  copies  of  this  Pentateuch,  in  which  only 
a  few  pages  are  missing  at  the  beginning  and  end ;  besides,  it 
has  two  leaves  on  parchment  which  are  printed  on  one  side 
only,  and  had  been  used  as  binding  for  a  book. 

The  correct  number  of  pages  for  the  Early  Prophets  (No  10), 
Albo  (No.  12),  and  the  Later  Prophets  (No.  16)  have  already  been 
given  by  Manzoni  (pp.  58-9,  70,  133),  for  the  latter  also  by  Zedner 
(p.  121).  Manzoni  (pp.  133  and  152)  also  has  corrected  Stein- 
schneider  in  the  dates  of  the  Mahzor  (No.  14)  and  the  Soncino 
Bible  of  1488  (No.  25). 

The  dated  Ixar  Pentateuch  of  1490  (No.  32)  is  from  the  same 
press  and  has  the  same  printer's  mark  as  the  undated  one 
(No.  35),  the  colophon  of  which  is  reprinted  here  for  the  first 
time ;  accordingly  the  name  of  the  printer,  Eliezer  Alantansi, 
ought  to  appear  in  both  cases.  Solomon  Zalmati,  as  he  himself 
says,  only  supplied  the  funds  for  the  printing  lltSU  TXO'Cn  DIXJ 
•)3ip  mnyn  loiproro  IJl  yjl  IJiroc,  as  he  had  done  seven  years 
earlier  for  the  publication  of  a  Latin  commentary  on  the  Psalms 
by  the  convert  Perez  de  Valencia,  the  author  of  an  attack  on  the 
Jews  also  printed  in  Valencia  by  the  same  printer,  Alfonso 
Fernandez  de  Cordova,  evidently  a  friend  of  Zalmati  (Hacbler, 
Bibliografia  Iberica,  p.  253).  For  the  undated  Pentateuch 
Cassuto  gives  190,  Wachstein  (No.  70)  191  leaves,  both  put  the 
printing  c.  1490-5,  following  in  this  respect  De  Rossi,  who  con- 
sidered 1SC'''N  a  Portuguese  city.  Since  the  place  has  been 
identified  by  Zunz  (Zeitschrift,  pp.  135-6)  as  being  in  Spain,  it  is 


Io8  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

of  course  evident  that  it  must  have  appeared  before  the  expulsion, 
and  Zunz  indeed  expressly  draws  this  inference.  Rosenthal  has 
one  parchment  leaf  (Gen.  i8.  10-30)  of  the  dated  Pentateuch 
(No.  55).  Following  a  misprint  in  Freimann  he  calls  the  printer 
Alantrtj'i. 

For  Kimhi's  Shorashim,  Naples  1490  (No.  33)  Cassuto  gives 
the  name  of  Samuel  Latif  as  printer.  Latif,  however,  only  served 
as  a  corrector  to  some  printer,  as  he  did  to  Soncino  for  the 
treatise  Ketubot  according  to  his  epigraph  of  Dec.  15,  1487 
(Freimann,  ZflfB.,  XII,  p.  14).  In  Cassuto's  abstract  of  the 
colophon  the  reference  to  the  several*  copies  he  consulted  and 
the  claim  of  great  correctness  ought  not  to  have  been  omitted. 
For  the  1491  edition  (No.  36)  Cassuto  missed  the  reference  to 
Zedner,  p.  200,  who,  as  I  mentioned  before,  found  in  his  copy 
the  name  of  the  printer,  Isaac  ben  Judah  ben  David,  called  Ben 
Catorze  from  Calatayud,  Aragon. 

Since  the  colophon  of  this  edition,  which  is  partly  missing  in 
the  Florence  copy,  contains  some  interesting  statements,  and  has 
not  been  reproduced,  it  may  be  given  here  according  to  the 
Seminary  copy,  adding  in  brackets  the  last  four  lines  and  the 
addition  in  the  third  line  before  them,  which  occur  only  in  the 
British  Museum  copy.  The  ends  of  the  lines  are  indicated  by 
vertical  strokes  ;  the  underlined  words  are  printed  in  Rabbinical 
characters  : 

••^ipi  snps'  D-u'^N  I  n^'hit.  'D^-j-no  i:n3xi  sin  mvca  dv  T\y7\  Drn 

\  Nvcn  TJ'N  njinni'  yp  psi  anr  itu  ^idjd  un  |  n''C':^  d^b>jn 
n^n  y:]}2  D-'oanjn  Dnaon  |  nxc  b  •D''cnincn  nbxn  ••□""L'-itrnn^B^a: 
I  ^3No  • '  D''-i''3N  nrh  ••□nsDH  n^sn  •□•'::'-iy  |  tiji  rhj2  ^biD  ^sn 
nmiDj?  'yc'2  -laon  nr  |  D'-ainb  i3?:3Dn  r\:r\i  •n'<'C'-ipr\  '''^ipD  D''3^rD 
W^b  fi'ib  n^nro  inijppn  nipro  mion  |  dj   "vsn  niu  mann  jyoi? 

I  n  snip  )'n' 
p   nnx  I  'Disn    ncns   b    mxn    uro'cn    isDn    n^nnn    n^ni 
♦  •  mt^tj'  •  •  rT't^sin  •  •  nc^nan  u  1  ick  naon  onon  T^rn^  ijmdh 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  109 

i6^  C'N  )ybv  wiDH''  bnb  inin^T  d3?:x  n])  \  '"'-im  •  •  nm»a  •  •  snp^i 
b^iy  naon  |  nr  n^m  -mpj^n  nxmnn  iryDL"  nic^nii  ij^nrn  |  yn^ 
^3  /N  ncHD  "invi  frya  |  o^^'-nnr^n  !^n'  d:  n^  o^n  b  ba  n^yinn 
njn  •  •  imin  j-ijdnj  n\nn  'inup^  n^  ■urn"  1  Ti^'n  ^3i  nipiiTi  no^o 

^jy]  i^sw  n^yn  na  ^J2bu: iniix'D  nci^L'-^nor*  inx  |  nsB' 

I  Q^-^ba  nrron  n:c'  -ns  lyin  c'ni  ""^'v^n  |  orn  [nD?:i^  Dinnn  n^ 
I  na'wS  nvN  ny^-^  Ty  |  ^nc'ino  "d^n^  ^HpT  •'jn]  |  •  •  n'T'V''^  nnxi  D^nxci 
p  n:i3Dn  ^vr  in   p   mm-'  ^ns*  yis^   p   pn^*''  |  •  •  p^iN  ni^^on 

['rniDp 

Rosenthal  (Nos.  35-7),  following  Freimann,  ascribes  both 
editions  to  Joseph  Gunzenhauser.  This  hypothesis  is  entirely 
unacceptable.  The  two  editions  appeared  within  five  months 
of  each  other  about  twelve  years  after  the  edUio  princeps  we 
discussed  before.  That  there  should  have  arisen  suddenly  such 
a  general  demand  for  a  dictionary  of  the  Bible  at  Naples  among 
the  scholars,  beginners,  and  especially  teachers,  to  whom  the 
printer  looks  as  prospective  buyers,  does  not  sound  probable,  and 
one  cannot  understand  why  a  printer  should  in  such  a  way 
compete  with  himself.  We  certainly  should  expect  some  informa- 
tion about  the  peculiar  circumstances  in  the  colophon.  Instead, 
Catorze  only  praises  his  D'^u'TiriDn  npNn  D''CintJ'  as  far  superior  to 
all  printed  works  on  the  subject,  thus  including  the  Makre  Darde- 
ke  of  1488,  as  well  as  Latif's  edition  of  Kimhi.  Moreover,  the 
two  editions  are  very  different ;  not  only  is  the  earlier  printed 
in  one  column,  the  later  in  two,  but  the  former  has  the  references 
in  the  margin,  the  other  in  brackets  in  the  body  of  the  text.  The 
fact  that  in  the  1491  edition  two  columns  were  omitted  in  the 
early  part  of  the  book  (end  of  letter  n)  and  supplied  at  the  end  is 
perhaps  due  to  hurried  work  in  order  not  to  give  the  other  printer 
too  great  an  advantage.  This  also  accounts  for  the  omission  of 
the  references  to  the  pericopes  of  the  Pentateuch  after  the  first 
dozen  folios  or  so  referred  to  in  the  colophon.  Furthermore,  the 
type  used  is  different  in  both,  the  Rabbinical  characters  employed 
for  the  references  being  much  smaller  in  the  former.    Both  sets  of 


no  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

type  seem  to  me  different  from  all  the  other  fonts  used  at  Naples, 
e.  g.  the  ligature  1i,  which  both  use  in  the  Rabbinical  type, 
I  have  not  seen  elsewhere.  (Similarly,  Baron  Giinzburg,  Festschrift 
Chwo/sofi,  p.  96,  note,  i)oints  to  the  difference  between  the  Conat 
type  used  for  the  early  part  of  the  Yoreh  Deah  of  1477  [fols.  1-30 
and  39]  and  the  Ferrara  type  used  for  the  rest  as  most  evident 
in  this  same  ligature  Tl.)  Accordingly  Rosenthal's  statement 
that  the  types  used  are  identical  with  those  of  Gunzenhauser's 
edition  of  Nahmanides'  Shaar  ha-Gemul  is  incorrect  in  both 
instances. 

Of  Avicenna's  Kanon,  Cassuto  describes  a  fragment  (No.  39), 
Rosenthal  an  almost  complete  copy  (No.  39) ;  Wachstein  (No.  48) 
also  has  a  copy.  This  book,  of  which  I  possess  a  copy  myself, 
I  lately  examined  rather  carefully,  and  will  go  in  this  instance 
a  little  more  into  bibliographical  detail.  Following  De  Rossi,  all 
the  bibliographers  state  that  the  book  is  printed  in  two  columns 
and  has  fifty  lines  to  the  column  ;  only  Cassuto  notices  that  the 
number  of  lines  varies,  and  that  one  page  is  printed  in  one 
column.  This  is  the  case  with  the  recto  of  the  first  leaf  of 
signature  n  in  Book  I  and  the  last  four  lines  of  fol.  8  b  of  signa- 
ture S  of  Book  IV,  in  which  two  instances  the  lines  are  continuous, 
covering  the  whole  page.  In  Book  III,  signature  T,  fol.  3  a,  only 
one  column  is  printed  in  the  middle  of  the  page.  The  number 
of  lines  varies  from  40-55,  and  differs  greatly  in  the  columns  of 
one  and  the  same  page.  To  give  a  few  examples  picked  at 
random  :  Book  I,  signature  T,  fol.  3,  col.  i  has  44,  col.  2,  40, 
col.  3,  47,  col.  4,  44  lines;  in  the  following  leaf  col.  i  has  50, 
col.  2,  49,  col.  3,  48,  col.  4,  46  lines  (counting  the  spaces  left 
between  the  chapters  as  lines).  This  gives  an  idea  of  the  uneven 
appearance  of  the  book,  of  which  I  think  we  find  no  other 
example  among  Hebrew  incunabula.  Only  Rosenthal  noticed  that 
in  Book  I,  signature  N^  leaf  8  a,  we  find  on  the  margin  a  woodcut 
diagram  of  the  bones  of  the  neck.  The  collation  of  the  book 
offers  more  difficulties.  De  Rossi  counts  143,  192,  and  141  leaves, 
Rosenthal  143,  194,  and  140,  Pellechet,  No.  1670:  144,  194, 
and  143,  Roest  in  his  catalogue  of  the  Rosenthaliana  at  Amster- 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  III 

dam,  p.  455,  has  473,  Wachstein  477,  Zedner,  p.  293,  gives  486 
pages ;  the  last  seems  to  be  a  misprint  for  480,  caused  by  the 
occurrence  of  the  number  86  on  the  same  line  in  the  reference 
to  De  Rossi,  which  curiously  is  also  misprinted  as  486.  Roest 
must  have  had  a  defective  copy ;  the  other  discrepancies  are  due 
to  the  fact  that  most  copies  lack  some  of  the  blank  leaves. 
Unfortunately  no  detailed  collation  of  the  British  Museum  copy 
is  available.  I  used  Steinschneider's  complete  copy,  which  has 
no  blanks  (474  leaves),  and  that  of  Columbia,  which  has  three 
blanks,  the  only  detailed  collation  of  Wachstein,  and  that  of 
Rosenthal.     From  these  I  derive  the  following  collation : 

Book  I.     Preface  and  contents  (i*),    i   and  4  b   being 

blank;  "^n-N,  (i"),  i  b  and  2  blank  =    70 

„    II.     Contents  (i^),  5  b  and  6  blank ;  'n-S%  '"'0,  6  b 

blank  =    76 

„  III.     Contents  (i-),   i  and  2a  blank;    "wS',    -J^-D, 

7  b  and  8  of  last  blank  =194 

„  IV.     Contents  (i"),  i  a  blank;  ^'-N,  ''S\  *2'  =    96 

„    V.     Contents  (i*"),  i  blank;  -n-N,  (i^),  4b  blank  =    44 

480 

This  method  of  collation,  which  is  common  in  the  description 
of  incunabula  in  general,  has  to  be  applied  consistently  to  the 
Hebrew  incunabula  as  well.  By  this  means  it  is  easy  to  examine 
any  copy  and  determine  whether  it  is  complete  or  what  is  missing. 
It  is  more  convenient  to  follow  the  signatures  of  the  books  than 
to  count  through  the  whole  volume  as  A\^achstein  does,  and  by 
this  method  the  blanks  left  by  the  printer  are  most  easily  indi- 
cated and  find  their  natural  explanation.  In  the  two  cases 
where  a  new  volume  begins — the  Kanon  is  mostly  bound  in  three 
volumes.  Books  I-II,  III,  IV-^V— i.e.  with  Books  III  and  IV 
the  recto  of  the  first  leaf  of  the  table  of  contents  is  left  blank. 
I  think  that  this  detailed  description  is  not  quite  out  of  place 
here  as  it  corrects  the  books  reviewed  in  various  points.  In  this 
connexion  I  want  to  draw  attention  to  a  very  instructive  paper : 
'  Desiderata  in  the  cataloguing  of  Incunabula,  with  a  guide  for 


112  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

Catalogue  entries ',  by  Arnold  C  Klebs  in  Papers  of  the  Biblio- 
graphical Society  of  America^  X,  1916,  pp.  143-63. 

The  rarest  books  described  by  Cassuto  are  the  last  two 
numbers.  The  Psalter  of  Brescia  1493  (No.  72)  is  not  found  in 
Oxford;  Steinschneider  includes  the  number  13  in  brackets  to 
indicate  the  fact,  and  but  for  a  couple  of  leaves  De  Rossi  was  able 
to  acquire,  the  copy  in  Florence  is  unique.  De  Rossi  remarks 
that  it  was  produced  from  the  type  set  for  the  Brescia  Bible 
which  was  printed  at  the  same  time,  each  column  of  the  Bible 
text  being  broken  into  two  so  as  to  prepare  a  handy  pocket  edition 
of  the  Psalter.  Other  instances  of  the  same  practice  by  Soncino 
were  given  by  Friedberg,  ZfHB.,  VIII,  p.  158,  who  like  Cassuto 
overlooked  this  remark  of  De  Rossi  about  our  book. 

The  most  curious  of  the  Florence  incunabula  is  No.  43, 
Pentateuch,  Megillot  and  Haftarot.  which  claims  that  its  text  of 
the  Pentateuch  was  corrected  according  to  the  famous  Hilleli- 
codex.  Cassuto  contradicts  Freimann's  assertion  that  this  edition 
was  meant  to  serve  as  a  Tikkun,  since  the  text  is  too  incorrect. 
It  is  much  to  be  regretted  that  we  have  no  specimen  of  this  print 
which  Freimann,  who  discovered  it,  intended  to  publish  in  fac- 
simile {ZfHB.,  VIII,  p.  144).  Since  the  Codex  Hilleli  remained 
in  the  Iberian  peninsula  down  to  the  time  of  the  expulsion  (see 
Zacuto,  Juchasin,  ed.  Filipowski,  London,  1857,  p.  220b),  we 
are  justified  in  ascribing  this  edition  to  a  Spanish  or  Portuguese 
press. 

As  a  supplement  to  his  Incuiiaboii  Cassuto  published  in  the 
Rivista  Israeiitica,  IX,  pp.  167-73,  and  a  reprint  of  seven  pages 
'  Note  bibliografiche  suUa  edizione  principe  del  Kol-Bo.'  He 
had  found  a  copy  of  this  incunable  in  the  Collegio  Rabbinico 
after  his  book  had  appeared,  and  upon  careful  examination  of 
the  book  reached  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  basis  for  the 
assertion  of  the  bibliographers  which  Rosenthal  (No.  41)  still 
follows,  that  the  book  was  printed  in  Naples  c.  1490.  It  belongs 
to  the  books  for  which  neither  place  nor  date  is  known. 

One  of  the  very  rare  incunabula  which  is  dealt  with  rather 
briefly  by  Rosenthal  (No.  40),  the  Behai  Of  Naples,  contains  in  its 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  II3 

long  epigraph,  which  is  for  the  first  time  fully  reprinted  by  Wach- 
stein,  pp.  21-3,  a  statement  which,  if  I  interpret  it  right,  is  of  great 
interest  for  the  history  of  Hebrew  typography.  Azriel  Gunzen- 
hauser's  brother-in-law,  Moses  ben  Isaac,  is  called  ac'im  Dsn  'cf^n 
ynv  N^s  msnn  nrs^D  b:i2  n)uv^  )*y  ncnn^.    Steinschneider  (Zei^- 

schrifi  fiir  Geschichte  der  Jndeii  in  Deutschland,  I,  p.  105)  explains 
this  'war  vielleicht  ein  Letternschneider  oder  Pressenverfertiger '. 
I  think  the  text  clearly  implies  that  he  was  also,  and  in  the  first 
place,  a  wood-engraver.  Our  book  contains  some  very  pretty 
woodcut  borders  (see  the  reproduction  in  Wachstein,  p,  20),  a  fact 
which  strengthens  this  theory  considerably.  Besides  these  full- 
page  borders  the  names  of  the  books  of  the  Pentateuch  are 
printed  in  a  woodcut  frame.  In  examining  the  various  Naples 
incunabula  of  our  library  I  found  that  this  woodcut  frame  of 
our  book,  the  latest  dated  Naples  incunabulum,  occurs  in  the 
earliest  Naples  books,  the  parts  of  the  Ketubim  as  well.  It 
is  reproduced  by  Rosenthal  as  No.  16  of  the  facsimiles  from 
Proverbs  1487.  We  find  it  again  in  the  Ibn  Ezra  of  1488  (see 
Jewish  Encyclopedia,  VI,  523),  Nahmanides  1490,  &c.  Sometimes 
it  is  turned  around,  the  bottom  being  put  on  the  top.  If  we 
compare  the  various  books  we  can  see  how  the  frame  is  gradually 
being  broken  on  one  side,  and  the  signs  of  wear  are  very 
evident  in  the  later  books.  If  Moses  ben  Isaac  is  the  wood- 
engraver  whose  work  is  used  for  the  Behai,  we  therefore  are  justified 
in  ascribing  to  him  all  the  woodcuts  used  in  Gunzenhauser's  office, 
and  these  include  most  of  those  found  in  Italian  incunabula.'^ 
Whether  they  are  the  work  of  the  same  artist  requires  expert 
examination.  Here  I  only  wish  to  establish  the  fact  that  we 
have  the  name  of  an  active  wood-engraver  working  for  a  Hebrew 
printer.  The  question  might  also  be  raised  whether  Moses  did 
some  work  for  printers  of  Latin  books,  and  whether  perhaps  the 
same  designs  also  occur  in  non-Hebrew  books.  A  careful 
investigation  of  the  woodcuts  illustrating  Ibn  Sahula's  MasJial 
ha-kadmoni   (not    mentioned    in    WK    L.    Schreiber,    Manuel  de 

*  See  now  Freimann,  ZurGcsc/iic/iic  (ley  iidisclicn  BitchillHstnition  bis  ij.fo. 
ZfHB.  XXI,  1918,  p.  25  seq. 

VOL.  XI.  I 


114  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

r amateur  de  la  gravure  sur  bois  et  sur  metal  an  if  siede,  V) 
might  have  an  important  bearing  on  this  question.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  it  has  been  estabhshed  that  the  border  used  by  Tuppo  in 
Naples,  1485,  for  his  edition  of  Aesop  occurs  again  in  the  first 
complete  edition  of  the  Hebrew  Bible  (Soncino,  1488);  see 
F.  Lippmann,  The  Art  of  IVood-engraving  in  Italy  in  the  Fifteenth 
Century,  London,  1888,  p.  15,  note  (where  Naples  is  wrongly  given 
as  printing-place  of  the  Bible) ;  A.  W.  Pollard,  Italian  Book 
Illustrations,  London,  1894,  p.  23,  and  Early  Illustrated  Books, 
2nd  edition,  London,  191 7,  p.  83.  Only  researches  in  one  of 
the  great  libraries  abroad  could  throw  further  light  on  this 
problem. 

On  the  most  interesting  Spanish  and  Portuguese  incunabula 
of  Rosenthal  I  shall  only  add  a  few  brief  remarks.  No.  50,  which 
the  Seminary  Library  acquired  together  with  No.  52,  is  different 
from  the  Guadalaxara  edition  of  Kimhi  on  the  Later  Prophets, 
of  which  the  Breslau  Seminary  possesses  a  complete  copy.  The 
Zamora  Rashi  does  not  speak  of  three  earlier  editions  of  Rashi,  as 
claimed  under  No.  52,  but  states  that  Rashi  was  the  third  book 
issued  from  the  Zamora  press,  the  preceding  two  being  a  Pentateuch 
and  a  prayer-book.  No.  55  is  recorded  by  Jacobs  as  65,  No.  66, 
which  I  have  seen,  is  only  part  of  a  leaf  containing  Gqw.  43.  29 — 
44.  23.  Instead  of  '  Kommentar ',  p.  27,  line  i,  read  'Targum'. 
Under  67  Leiria  is  called  the  last  printing-place  for  Hebrew  in- 
cunabula. This  is  incorrect.  The  last  place  is  Barco,  where 
Soncino  printed  in  1497. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  draw  attention  to  a  two-column  article 
on  an  Hebrew  incunabulum  which,  although  a  little  older,  is 
probably  known  to  very  few  of  the  readers.  A  few  years  ago 
I  received,  through  the  kindness  of  the  author,  Mr.  S.  Seeligmann 
of  Amsterdam,  a  reprint  of  an  article  '  Eene  zeldzame  Rasje- 
uitgave',  which  had  appeared  in  Centraal-Blad  voor  Israelieten 
in  Nederland,  XVI,  No.  43  (1901).  The  author,  who  signs  his 
name  C'^NH  nC'N,  deals  with  the  Rome  edition  of  Rashi,  of  which 
the  Seminary  Library  has  a  splendid  complete  copy,  but  his  pur- 
pose is  not  to  give  bibliographical  information,  but  to  point  to 


HEBREW  INCUNABULA — MARX  II5 

the  importance  of  the  book  for  textual  criticism,  illustrating  it  by 
a  few  good  readings  not  recorded  by  Berliner.^  This  is  a  point 
in  which  the  value  of  the  Hebrew  incunabula  greatly  differs  from 
most  of  those  in  other  languages.  In  the  latter  the  texts  com- 
monly used  are  in  every  way  superior  to  their  early  predecessors, 
being  based  on  the  best  manuscripts  which  came  down  to  us,  and 
having  profited  by  the  vast  advances  of  the  study  of  philology. 
For  most  of  the  Hebrew  texts  the  early  editions  are  far  superior 
to  the  modern  reproductions,  and  they  enable  us  in  numberless 
cases  to  correct  difficulties  and  establish  a  better  text.  Outside 
of  the  Bible  editions  examined  by  De  Rossi,  Baer  and  C.  D. 
Ginsburg,  and  the  Talmud  treatises  culled  in  Rabbinovicz's 
CIEDID  ''p1"'P''>  very  few  of  these  books  have  been  consulted  for 
modern  editions  (Kohut's  Aruk  is  perhaps  the  most  notable 
exception),  and  a  collection  of  Hebrew  incunabula  and  other 
early  editions  is  therefore  not  a  matter  of  curiosity  to  be  relegated 
to  a  museum,  but  represents  the  indispensable  tools  for  the 
Jewish  scholar.  Unfortunately  they  will  retain  this  importance 
for  a  long  time  yet,  since  there  is  little  prospect  for  an  organized 
effort  to  produce  the  necessary  critical  editions  of  all  these 
important  works  to  supersede  them,  an  effort  which  could  only 
be  directed  by  a  Jewish  academy  with  large  financial  resources. 

I  have  in  the  foregoing  review  dealt  at  great  length  with  the 
points  in  which  I  had  to  disagree  with  the  authors  on  a  subject 
to  which  I  have  devoted  a  great  deal  of  time  lately  in  connexion 
with  the  census  of  fifteenth-century  books  owned  in  America. 
I  gladly  state  once  more  in  conclusion  that  the  books,  and 
especially  that  of  Cassuto,  are  a  very  important  contribution  to 
a  field  little  cultivated,  and  that  I  derived  from  them  most 
valuable  information. 

6  Lately  J.  Maarsen,  n'lTD?  mNSn  Textstudien  op  den  Pcnfatmch- 
Conimentaar  van  Mozes  Naclnnanides,  I  (Genesis  en  Exodus),  Amsterdam, 
1918,  corrected  the  text  of  that  commentary  in  numberless  cases  on  the 
basis  of  the  early  editions,  especially  that  of  Lisbon  1489  yielding  very 
valuable  readings.  The  earliest  incunabulum  edition.  Rome  before  1480. 
unfortunately  was  inaccessible  to  him. 

I  a 


Il6  THE    JEWISH    QUARTERLY    REVIEW 

Cassuto,  Umberto.  GH  studi  giudaici  in  Italia  negli  ultimi 
cinquanf  an7ii  {i86i-igii).  Fascicolo  I  :  Bibliografia. 
Roma,  19 13  (reprinted  from  Rivisia  degli  studi  orietitali,  V). 
pp.  88,  8vo. 

Italian  Jewry  has  always  maintained  a  high  level  of  culture 
and  education.  While  the  number  of  standard  works  it  can 
boast  of  is  not  very  large,  it  can  point  to  the  Aruk  as  the 
classical  dictionary  of  Talmudic  literature  for  a  period  of  eight 
centuries.  Modern  historical  criticism  in  Jewish  literature  takes 
its  starting-point  from  the  famous  Meor  Enayim  of  Azariah 
de  Rossi  (Mantua,  1574),  who  was  far  in  advance  of  his  time. 
Among  the  founders  of  Jewish  Wissenschaft  in  the  nineteenth 
century  Isaac  Reggio,  and  especially  Samuel  David  Luzzatto, 
take  a  very  high  rank.  In  spite  of  the  relatively  small  number 
of  Italian  Jews,  everybody  familiar  with  the  recent  development 
in  the  field  of  Jewish  literature  is  well  aware  of  the  important 
contributions  in  this  field  due  to  the  zeal  of  the  small  band  of 
devoted  Jewish  scholars  in  that  country.  The  ten  volumes  of  the 
Rivista  Israelitica,  a  strictly  scientific  bi-monthly,  contain  a  great 
number  of  articles  of  the  highest  value  in  all  departments  of 
Jewish  learning  and  are  indispensable  to  the  serious  Jewish 
scholar. 

But  even  those  who  have  more  or  less  closely  followed  the 
progress  of  Jewish  studies  in  the  various  countries  will  be  surprised 
by  the  amount  of  work  actually  accomplished  in  the  field  of  post- 
biblical  Judaism  in  Italy  during  the  last  fifty  years  and  recorded 
in  Cassuto's  careful  and  most  valuable  bibliography.  It  is  only 
through  it  that  we  get  full  insight  into  this  activity  of  our  Italian 
co-religionists.  Incidentally  an  index  is  supplied  to  the  articles 
of  scientific  value  which  appeared  in  the  various  Italian  Jewish 
periodicals  (of  course  with  the  omission  of  the  contributions  of 
foreigners  like  Berliner  or  Steinschneider,  which,  however,  at  least 
in  the  case  of  these  two  scholars,  are  enumerated  in  the  biblio- 
graphies of  their  writings).  Luzzatto  comes  in  for  the  last  five 
years  of  his  life  only,  but  the  numerous  posthumous  publications 


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